


Dragon Gang

by Raikim4Never



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: ...I'm surprised that was a ready tag but perhaps I shouldn't be, Astrid is a real name I think so she keeps her name, Berk is a city not a country, Dark-ish Dragon Riders, Dark-ish Hiccup, Dragon Master!Hiccup, Dragons, Dragons in closer to modern times, Everyone thinks the Riders are dead and they'd like to keep it that way please, F/M, First two chapters/halves of the prologue take place in the future so watch out for that, Gen, Hiccup Fishlegs and Snotlout technically have modern names but the Riders never use them, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and Snotlout Jorgenson are Cousins, I know it looks like they're in America in like the 1920s, I used a random map generator and everything, Maybe not at first though, No Smut, No graphic stuff yet but it's gonna happen someday, The Dragon Riders care about three things:, The Thorstons are weird so Ruff and Tuff keep their names too, and money, but it's a fictional county okay, each other, it seems like the kind of thing most people would assume anyway, mob/mafia au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2020-11-15 10:36:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20864816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raikim4Never/pseuds/Raikim4Never
Summary: When Hiccup Haddock leaves the city of Berk with his dragon friends he didn't exactly expect to become the next big crime boss, but that's just how his life goes, apparently.





	1. Chapter 0 pt.1/2

Mayor Stoick Haddock groaned as he leaned back into his chair. His old friend Gobber glanced at him over his newspaper, and his brother Simon Sr. (or Spitelout, as he’d nicknamed him when they were kids) was pacing a hole in Stoick’s living room floor.

  
“What are we gonna do about this, Stoick?” Spitelout asked with a growl in his voice. “These criminals took my son!”

  
Stoick glared. He knew perfectly well how his brother felt, and was less than pleased that Spitelout didn’t seem to care enough to remember that.

  
“Your son ain’t the only one taken,” Gobber pointed out, then held up and shook his newspaper. “Or are ya’ forgetin ‘that?”

  
Stock glared at the newspaper. He had enough on his plate without the group of troublemakers who’d made the front page again. The Draconus Equitem. Pretentious name for a bunch of pretentious criminals, mere _children_ playing at being a gang.

  
It had started a few years ago, when his boy, his only son, was taken by dragons. At the time, he’d thought it was a wild dragon, like the one that had taken his wife, with black scales that were unlike any from any dragon that had been identified before… but then a black dragon, with some masked human _riding on top of it_ had swooped down and carried off the Hofferson girl, and Stoick realized that this man had been responsible for the devilbeast taking his son. After that it had been the Ingerman boy who was taken, then the Thorston twins, although it seemed like the girl had been the intended target, with the boy grabbing onto his sister and reportedly yelling that if the dragons wanted to spirit one of them away, they’d get them both. Finally, it had been Simon’s own son, his nephew Simon Jr., who was taken.

  
None of them had ever been seen since, although it turned out that the man who rode the Black Death, as the dragon that had taken his son was named in the news, was far from alone. There were seven other riders, with six more dragons between them, none of them the same species, a Nadder, a Gronkle, a Zippleback (with two riders), a Monstrous Nightmare, and two other dragons no one had seen before -a shiny metal one and a purple and yellow one that the news had taken to calling a Knife Tail and a Scorpion Claw. They had caused all kinds of trouble, from robbing banks to bootlegging, and even blowing up an orphanage! Who did that?!

  
“We’ve gotta do _something,_ Stoick!” Spitelout said, slamming his fist against the wall. “These murderers killed ma’ boy! They killed your boy!”

  
“What exactly do you suggest?” Stoick growled. “I haven’t exactly been sitting idle, Spitelout.” Spitelout grimaced at the nickname, knowing very well he’d never escape it. “I have officers watching every bank, multiple detectives trying to track them down, and that’s in addition to the dragon attacks we endure every other month!”

  
“These kids are definitely ruthless,” Gobber added unhelpfully. “But some of those things the Death Rider’s come up with? Genius! He even made some sort of suit that let’s ‘im fly! He’s a clever criminal, I’ll give ‘im that.”

  
Stoick and Spitelout both glared at him.

  
“...sorry.”

  
“I say we shoot the Death Rider and his beast out of the sky!” Spitelout spat. “Take a biplane up and…” he dragged a thumb across his neck. “See how the other Equitems do without their boss!”

  
“Assuming that would work in the first place…” Stoick sighed. “If we didn’t manage to get all of them, the survivors would likely use their tamed beasts to destroy all of Berk, and possibly the greater area besides. You heard what happened to my friend Oswald when he tried to take care of them…”

  
Silence.

  
“No,” Stoick sighed. “We can’t brute force this. We need to find where they’re holed up, before we do anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having writer's block for my main series, and I was wondering about how a Mob/Mafia AU for HTTYD would work. Now I've got a bunch of ideas and decided to strike while the iron was hot so I'd have _something_ for Update Day. I hope everyone enjoys it.
> 
> Anyway.
> 
> As a heads up, if it's mentioned that the news coined the name for a dragon, it's Wrong. Always.  
Black Death = Night Fury  
Knife Tail = Razorwhip  
Scorpion Claw = Triple Stryke (you'd think they'd focus on the _tails_ in the name but eh)
> 
> I actually debated naming this Draconus Equitem, but Stoick's right in that it sounds completely pretentious.
> 
> ...this isn't even my 'main' HTTYD AU, but it's the one I'm posting first. (;*´Д`)ﾉ


	2. Chapter 0: pt.2/2

If I were to tell you I didn’t mean to become what basically amounted to a mafia boss on a dragon, would you believe me? Because that is really, _really_ not how it was meant to go.__

  
My name is Harold ‘Hiccup’ Haddock, only son of the famous Mayor Stoick. Yep. I’m the runt who’s supposed to have died. Don’t tell my dad I’m alive, please. He doesn’t know, and I’d like to keep it that way at this point.

  
Maybe I should explain a bit…

  
You might have heard about the terrifying Draconus Equitem, read about them in the paper, heard about them on the news, maybe you or someone you know was victimized by them. What you don’t know is, that they’re me and my friends. So, uh, sorry if you’re in the last category.

  
Anyway. My dad, when I was a kid, he was tough, you know? Being a single father to a runt who’s always getting in trouble, especially when your chosen career is politics, not easy. I don’t blame him for anything, though. I’m not saying my daddy issues or whatever turned me rotten. Back on topic, he did everything he could to turn me into a son he could be proud of, and I, usually, went along with it because I wanted him to be proud of me. Sounds simple, right? Well, uh… at first maybe. Then everything changed the day I snuck out of my most recent ‘volunteer’ job during a dragon raid.

  
…you don’t know what the dragon raids are, do you? Okay, well, short version is this: for years, this area, this whole country even, has been under siege by flying, scaly, fire-breathing lizards. I promise they’re not so bad when you get used to them, but when they’re attacking you? Hoooo boy. The raids around here are mostly done by four types of dragon: the rock-eating, lava-spewing Gronkle, the spine-shooting, magnesium-blasting Nadder, the two-headed, gas-blowing Zippleback, and the self-igniting, fire-breathing Monstrous Nightmare. Oh! There’s also these small ones, about the size of a large cat, called Terrible Terrors. Pack hunters, but they’re only rarely involved, thankfully. Getting swarmed is not fun, though I’ve never experienced it myself.

  
As far as anyone could tell, those were actually the _only_ kinds of dragons involved. But there were rumors, oh there were rumors. And I believed them. Even if I hadn’t, I was determined to kill a dragon and I was sure that would make my father proud of me. Even now, I’m sure it would have. That’s not what happened though, as you can probably tell. Instead, I proved that the rumors were true, and shot down a legendary dragon, in a color I’d never known they could come in- black. I don’t care what the papers are calling him, he’s a Night Fury, not a Black Death.

  
Short version again: I didn’t kill him. Obviously. Instead, I freed him, he didn’t kill me, and I made him a prosthetic and helped him fly again after realizing I’d taken off half his tail fin. Then he saved me, well most of me, from a nasty fire started by a captive Monstrous Nightmare, and we all ran away together.

  
Oh yeah, almost forgot. There’s this volunteer training program that me and most of my friends were in that taught you how to murder dragons. Fun times. For added context: I screwed up my final exam, killing the Monstrous Nightmare mentioned previously, and got separated from everyone in the fire. Luckily, I’d already been using what I’d been learning from my new, scaly friend about dragons before that, and secretly befriended the dragons I was supposed to be killing, so we were all able to get out okay. Mostly. I might have lost a foot. And it’s possible people saw me flying away with Toothless (he’s the Night Fury I mentioned, my partner and best friend). Cue telephone game, and everyone being convinced I wasn’t exactly on his back while we all flew away. It probably helped, or didn’t depending on your point of view, that my mom died pretty much the same way.

  
Eventually, the twelve of us (me, Toothless, the Monstrous Nightmare, a Nadder, a Gronkle, a Zippleback, and six Terrible Terrors) found a seemingly safe place to stay, an old, burned-down town a few… dozen miles on the other side of the river that leads into town. Out of town, whichever. It wasn’t exactly easy at first. Turns out the town ruins were home to some nasty dragons called Whispering Deaths, and their leader had some kind of beef with Toothless. Then we, Toothless and I specifically, killed it (I guess that dragon-killing school came in handy after all, ugh), and all the other Whispering Deaths took that to mean we were in charge now.  
In about a month, we had to move again because there were just too many dragons living in the immediate area. Well, that and a couple other reasons. We’re in a safer spot now.

  
But I’m guessing you’re wondering about the other riders, huh? And also how I went from vagabond dragon friend to the Death Rider? Well, I can’t say it all started with Astrid exactly, but let’s start there anyway.

  
What? No, the orphanage wasn’t us! Sheesh! I mean, we were _there,_ but we weren’t the ones who did it, give us a _little_ credit! …it was the sanatorium that we destroyed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Might as well add some Worldbuilding down here. It's almost 1 AM, so this can't possibly be a bad idea.  
Stoick, as mentioned in this chapter, had Hiccup helping out in a _lot_ of different places, with Gobber's blacksmithing place being the last and longest-lasting. It's left Hiccup with a bunch of random, barely-there skills, including things like leatherworking, chemistry and even some medical knowledge. The twins still outstrip him in random knowledge, but he can make do by himself.
> 
> He also didn't invent the Mangler, on account of no one using bolas in any capacity, but basically made a homemade machine gun, which shredded Toothless's tailfin but left it still partially there. By the time Hiccup got close to Toothless, he had some bad infection going on, and that's where Hiccup's medical knowledge managed to come in slightly handy.
> 
> He had to cut the shredded parts of the tailfin off himself, though.
> 
> Also, the dragon training took place over a longer timeframe than in the movie, which gave Hiccup plenty of time to get to know the Arena Dragons and befriend them, as mentioned. The arena itself is around the size of a football field, with the same kind of chain ceiling the arena in canon has, and the dragons are actually kept underground. (for some reason I initially envisioned an office-building like thing, even though I instantly knew that didn't make sense, and I finally came up with something that sort of did.)
> 
> Also be aware that I'm going to be using sanatorium and asylum interchangeably, probably.


	3. Chapter 1: Astrid Enters

There was an unnerving feeling in Astrid’s gut, not unlike the one she’d had when Hiccup had died. It was worrying.

  
It had been several months since the captive dragons had gotten loose and killed her fellow student, and her parents had, unfortunately, taken that as a sign from above that she shouldn’t be involved in such masculine pursuits. It infuriated her. She knew that they were just trying to protect her, but still!

Which was why she had gone to the Thorston twins (Ruffnut by intention, Tuffnut by chance) for a favor.

  
“Ya want me to do what?” Ruff asked after blowing out a puff of smoke as she tossed a towel at the other girl. It had been raining all day with no sign of letting up. Typical Berk weather.

  
“She said she wants you to cut her hair,” Tuff interjected for her. “Not that I can understand why anyone would trust _you_ with their hair.” He got in close to Astrid’s face and continued in a stage whisper. “I’m the one that does her hair. If I let her try and take care of it herself, she’d go bald for the rest of her life.”

  
“It was a rhetorical question, dummy!”

  
“Please, like you know what that word means!”

  
This was probably a bad idea. But she knew her parents didn’t approve of Ruff’s… lifestyle, so just dipping her toe into this ‘flapper’ fashion stuff seemed like decent revenge. If it made her ‘unmarriable’ like the other girl, all the better.

  
“Would _one of you_ just cut my hair short already?!” Astrid yelled at the twins, who were starting to get physical with each other. Astrid had to admire not only the fact that Ruff refused to become the picture of a perfect little housewife, but also that her family actually fully supported her. Sure, it got them labeled unnatural, but she was pretty sure they had a silent fanclub, given the way some people looked at them (when the looks weren’t terrified at any rate).

….…………………………………………………………………….

She was right, her parents were horrified when they saw her nice, long hair cut short. Ruffnut had even given her a skirt and blouse to go with it with a wink (how did she even afford so many clothes?), although Astrid wasn’t currently wearing it. Her parents had lectured her for a while, reminding her that her Uncle Finn had already embarrassed the family enough with his bootlegging and they didn’t need her turning into a deviant, but it wasn’t like they could force her hair to grow back out again instantly.

  
They had, however, gone through her room to look for things that they didn’t approve of. Or her dad had, and her mom pulled her aside.

  
“Astrid, please,” she all but begged, “please don’t ruin your life. One day, you’ll need a husband to take care of you, to put a roof over your head and keep you fed. I’ll respect your… haircut, but please don’t go any farther than this!”

  
“Maybe I don’t want to be treated like an invalid!” Astrid snapped back. “Mom, I don’t want to be provided for, I want a job!”

  
Something about her mother’s absolutely horrified expression broke Astrid’s heart. Maybe it was just the guilt of upsetting her mother. Maybe it was the realization that she would never be the daughter her parents wanted.

  
“Astrid,” her mother whimpered. “You nearly died. I don’t want to bury my daughter. We’ve been given the gift of a second chance, and a sign from above that you need to stop!”

  
“Not to mention how it reflects on us,” her father said, coming into a room with a box that was likely both full of her things and going to be thrown away. “If people find out I can’t even control my own child, or worse, think that I condone such things! I could lose my job, then this house, then where would we be?”

  
She didn’t actually get to answer, because he walked away as soon as he’d asked his question. Astrid clenched her fists, turned on her heels, and stormed away.

….………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Astrid Hofferson was not the kind of person who would give up or take things lying down, so she had, after a few hours of yelling and throwing things, decided to grab the umbrella the twins had been kind enough to loan her and try and see Mayor Stoick in the hopes that maybe he could do something to convince her parents to let her continue training. It was something of a long shot, but she and his son had been students together at the Dragon Hunting Program not long ago, so she might as well try.

  
She didn’t get to the top step of the stairs to the town hall before the dragon alarm went off. She tensed and whipped around as the bell tolled to announce another dragon raid, but she couldn’t see anyth-

  
Her heart nearly stopped when, within the span of maybe half a second, cold, sharp claws wrapped around her arms and she was torn from the stairs she’d been standing vigil on. The speed that the dragon (and it had to be a dragon) was flying at created a horrible wind that made her hair whip her face hard enough to sting and made her eyes water, as though the soft rain that was suddenly more like bullets against her skin wasn’t already doing that. The entire world was a terrifying blur of colors and water and wind and she was trapped and helpless no matter how hard she instinctively tried to squirm out of the claws holding her before realized she was very, _very,_ high up. Someone was screaming and she realized it was her… about a second before the dragon that had taken her dropped her into the water.

  
She flailed in the cold, cold, _cold_ water for a few seconds before finally getting her barrings somewhat and, with a deep breath began treading water and looking around. She didn’t know where she was, it was still raining, and she was near enough to low water that swimming back was easy. When her feet could finally touch the ground, and she could fully blink the water out of her eyes, she came face-to-face with large, green eyes and a black scaly face and she froze completely for a second.

  
She was completely unarmed. What was she supposed to do now?! Yell at it and hope it ran away?! Yeah, right.

  
“It’s okay!” a voice from someone she hadn’t noticed before, on account of him being _on top of the dragon,_ told her quickly, hopping off him. He had a mask on his face, but his voice was shockingly familiar. “He just wants to meet you, I promise!”

  
The dragon snorted in her face.

  
“Toothless…” the rider sighed.

  
Hiccup. It had to be. It had been months, but that wasn’t enough time for Astrid to forget his voice.

  
“Hiccup?” she asked softly. The rider flinched at the nickname and removed the mask to reveal a familiar face and sheepish grin.

  
“Heeeeey Astrid…” he trailed off looking nervous. Astrid just gaped at him. “It’s uh, been a while hasn’t it? Uh…” Astrid composed herself, and walked over to him, the picture of calm and controlled. “Sorry about the whole… grabbing you bit, but I need your help-”

  
She punch him in the face and he landed hard on the ground.

  
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?” she yelled, aware of the dragon suddenly crouching and growling at her perceived attack but too angry to care. “I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! WE ALL THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! THERE WAS A FUNERAL! YOUR DAD CRIED! IN _PUBLIC!_”

  
Hiccup winced and crawled back a bit, but held out a hand to the dragon (while he rubbed where she punched him with the other), which seemed to be keeping it back for now.  
“And where were you?!” she snarled, no longer screaming at the top of her lungs. “Hanging around with the devils that’ve been terrorizing our entire country since our grandparents were kids?!”

  
“I don’t think it’s been anywhere near that long, actually…”

  
“You’re a TRAITOR! A traitor to everyone in Berk, to every person on the planet!”

  
“Wow, leaving the boarders this early in the rant?” he asked sardonically and she balled her hands into fists and took a furious step forward.

  
“Are you seriously _snarking at me?!_” she asked, furious and disbelieving.

  
“It-it’s a coping mechanism, I think,” he shrugged, scooting back a little further.

  
“What is _wrong with you?!_” she spat.

  
“I mean, my face is bruised, I have a nutjob in handcuffs who tried to kill me waiting for me back at where I’m staying, I’m something vaguely resembling homeless, and I’m also the only one who knows why the dragons are acting crazy I think… and that’s about all that comes to mind right now, but I’m sure there’s more.”

  
“What?!”

  
“You asked.”

  
The dragon apparently decided it had enough when she took another step forward, and jumped in between the two of them with a snarl. Astrid jumped back slightly, staring in terror into the slit green eyes as the snarl became a continuous growl.

  
“Toothless,” Hiccup said softly, getting up and putting his hands on the dragon like it was a harmless horse or something. The dragon swung it’s head to look at him for a second, and the growl cut off. The dragon turned back to her with a wary look, but let Hiccup step between them. “Astrid, look, dragons aren’t what we think they are.”

  
“Oh really,” she said flatly.

  
“I know you don’t believe me, but I can- I can show you! I said I know why the dragons attack humans, and it’s not natural!”

  
“Of course not, _they’re_ not natural!”

  
“Wh- yes they are!”

  
“Hiccup they’re devils!”

  
“No they’re NOT!”

  
Astrid jerked back, she’d never heard Hiccup, mild-mannered Hiccup, who’d tried to avoid everyone during Dragon Training as much as possible, raise his voice. It was startling. Hiccup took a breath and held out his hand.

  
“Please, Astrid. My dad needs to know this, but he’d never, ever listen to me. He always told me you were the best at Dragon Training, I know he’d listen to you.”

Astrid took a second to process that. What? Why would he tell Hiccup that? She dismissed the thought a second later as irrelevant.

  
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  
“Please, Astrid, with what I’ve found out we might be able to stop this war! Save so many lives!”

  
Another pause.

  
“Fine.” She took his hand, and the dragon, giving her a wary look, crouched down. Hiccup let go of her hand, climbed onto the dragon’s back, or rather the saddle on it’s back, and offered his hand again. Once she was on the thing’s back as well, it took off. Very fast. Straight up.

  
“Toothless!” Hiccup scolded. The dragon ignored him and start doing loops, apparently encouraged by Astrid’s renewed screaming. “I’m sorry! He’s not normally like this!”  
Astrid ignored his words and wrapped her arms around him instead, since he was the only thing around to hang onto and she had all of zero desire to fall off. It wasn’t until the horrible, horrible, horrible dragon went into a freefall that she realized what it wanted.

  
“Okay! OKAY! I’M SORRY!” she screamed. “I’m sorry for being violent and angry! PLEASE STOP!”

  
The dragon instantly spread it’s wings and caught itself like a parachute, then started gliding about ten feet or so above the ground. Astrid took a deep breath of air as the ride became much smoother. Hiccup winced as she nearly threw up, though she managed not to. After her stomach settled, the dragon rose back up high into the air at a much more sane speed and angle. He looked like he wanted to reach out and touch her, to sooth her or something, she wasn’t sure, instead she just waved his concerned hand and look off, and finally looked around.

  
It was beautiful. Beyond beautiful, even. They paused above the cloudline without her realizing, and it was all odd shapes and shades of pink and orange and red that she’d never seen before. It didn’t feel like Earth at all. Astrid held out a hand to a nearby cloud and let the mist of it pass over her hands. Eventually the clouds broke and she could see the land below her, dots of lights from far-off towns formed constellations on ground, the light and shadows of the setting sun painting pictures that were like something out a dream beneath them. She felt breathless as she looked around, trying to see everything.

  
“I love it up here,” Hiccup commented after a while. “If I could just, just stay up here forever, I would. I don’t even feel the cold. I just feel… free.”

  
Astrid nodded in understanding.

  
“I admit,” she started, “this is amazing.” She glanced at the dragon. “_He’s_ amazing.” She sighed. “So, you said you found out why the dragons are attack us. That it’s apparently _not_ normal. Show me.”

  
Hiccup nodded.

  
“Alright. C’mon bud, let’s head back to our little hideaway, okay?” The dragon, Toothless, made some sort of weird screech/grunt noise and turned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be going back like, three/five/I haven't decided yet weeks in the next chapter, be forewarned. :P
> 
> Astrid was originally going to be a police cadet, before I realized the setting would probably make that too weird.
> 
> For the record, I do thing the Hoffersons are good parents... in canon. Here, they're somewhat blinded by the prejudices of their time, and are mostly worried about how the world will beat down on their baby girl for acting too headstrong and radical. They just want to protect her! And go about it in terrible ways.
> 
> Sheesh, I think the twins and Fishlegs are like the only Riders without serious parental issues in this AU. :/
> 
> I could have sworn this chapter was longer...


	4. Chapter 2: Dagur Drops In

Several weeks before Hiccup effectively kidnapped Astrid, he had been doing a flyby of the surrounding area, mostly for security reasons. Just because he wasn’t especially close to any big cities didn’t mean there wasn’t any place around with lots of people, and some of those places had a lot of anti-dragon weaponry. 

Mawdrill, one of the Whispering Deaths who defered to Toothless now, seemed to believe that they were all places where anti-dragon weaponry was being made, or at least, that was what Hiccup thought he was getting at, anyway. Whispering Deaths were a lot harder to communicate with than Toothless was, being a lot less… human-like in their expressions and body language. It probably had something to do with the fact that Whispering Deaths were basically giant, spiky beachballs with tails and wings. And teeth. Many, many rows of whirring teeth. It had taken a while for Hiccup to just get used to them, communication was still a work in progress.

ANYWAY, Hiccup was less inclined to believe that every single large collection of humans was out here for anti-dragon purposes and had decided to get a closer look to prove his point. This led to his current predicament.

“Hard right, bud!” Hiccup instructed, and Toothless twisted right hard, forcing Hiccup to grab onto the harness so hard he thought his hands would bleed from it to avoid being ripped off from the sudden force of air against him. He still managed to adjust Toothless’s tailfin, and the two of them only just managed to dodge the bullets aimed in their direction.

Hiccup had been right in one respect, at least, this wasn’t some weapon making camp, it was an asylum, Outcast Asylum to be precise. Which was armed to the teeth, probably more for keeping the nutjobs in than for dealing with dragons, but Hiccup wasn’t exactly eager to be shot full of holes, nor was Toothless.

Spotting a gunman in the midst of reloading, Hiccup drew Toothless’s attention to him. No words were spoken, but Toothless still understood and fired at the man, who yelled and fell off of his tower. Hiccup chose not to think too hard about what happened to him after that as Toothless broke his speed by landing on the side of the tower.  
More alarms went off inside the asylum, and there was, if it was even possible, more yelling from inside. Hiccup’s eyes darted around, and he spotted another man trying to cover an area near where the fallen man had been.

“Okay. I think it’s time to leave!”

Toothless shot at the new target and, with the area clear, sped up fast and the two were gone before the gap in the security could be closed.

Inside one of the towers, someone stood, surrounded by recently deceased bodies that were definitely not caused by the dragon or his rider. The rider that the someone recognized, vaguely. The someone squinted after the retreating forms in the sky, before grinning.

“Well well welly well well…” he said, “unless I miss my guess, I know that face.”

The someone giggled. He might just be in for some fun. And here he’d thought that he’d never be having fun again!

The giggle turned into a full on manic laugh.

….…………………………………………………………………

Toothless whacked his idiot human in the face with his tail after they landed. He didn’t know what he was trying to prove with this- whether the humans were doing anti-dragon things like Mawdrill suggested or not, they were still obviously going to be dangerous. He’d been shot enough for one dragon’s lifetime, thank you. Still, Hiccup seemed satisfied by the things he’d discovered, so the two of them felt the day was well spent.

And Mawdrill owed him fish now. That was a nice bonus (as though he would bet against Hiccup. Unless he was obviously wrong, of course.).

Hiccup had enjoyed the fish Toothless had given him, unaware of exactly how he had gotten it, and gone to get ready for bed. Humans had such insanely complex rituals for sleep. Well, really, humans had such insanely complex rituals for everything. Humans were honestly all insane. Still, it kept Hiccup happy, so Toothless could make do with just an occasional eyeroll.

A few of Toothless’s ears perked up at the faint sound of footsteps. Hiccup? No… he cocked his head to the side and listened harder, and Hiccup was still getting ready for bed. The footsteps, too light for most of the dragons who were living here, were near Hiccup however, and, to Toothless’s alarm, getting closer to his Human. Toothless whipped around, the sudden panic of an intruding human approaching his Hiccup driving Toothless to race towards where he was. The sound of a crash and Hiccup yelling in panic before being cut off made him speed up, and attracted the attention of several other dragons as well.

Toothless blasted a hole in the wall of the building Hiccup was in and stormed in, to find another human (how had he not _smelled_ him, his stench was _terrible_ close-up) on top of Hiccup, pinning him down face-foreward to the ground with his hands around his throat.

How how how had they been found?!

Toothless and the other dragons who had followed him growled, but the new human smiled.

“Ah ah ah, don’t shoot,” he said, leaning down close to Hiccup. “You wouldn’t want to hit my poor little brother, would you?”

Toothless had no idea what this human meant by ‘brother’, but Hiccup wasn’t his _anything_, and this insane claim only served to infuriate Toothless more. Unfortunately, the insane human was right, he didn’t want to hurt Hiccup and with the position he was in, any blast would hit his Human as well.

That didn’t stop Toothless from crouching low, growling, and approaching the humans. He might not be able to blast this new Insane Human, but he still had _teeth_.

Hiccup was squirming under the weight of the Insane Human, but he wasn’t strong enough to get free. Toothless hoped desperately that Hiccup’s struggles slowing down and stopping were just a result of realizing he couldn’t get out of his position, and not… something worse.

“What are you, anyway?” Insane Human asked aloud, and Toothless realized that he was talking to him, specifically. Did he… did he expect him to talk back to him in Humanese? “So many new dragons around here!” Insane Human laughed. “I would have figured Itty Bitty Hiccup would have died of fear from being around so many terrible dragons!” There was a weird tone to his voice, it sounded like when some humans talked to babies or cats, but Hiccup wasn’t either of those things, so Toothless was pretty sure it was mockery. “But!” Toothless stopped short in surprise when Insane Human took his hands off of Hiccup’s neck, and Hiccup took a struggling breath, still weighed down by the older human but now able to breath easier. At least he wasn’t dead yet. “Looks like you’ve gotten braver since I saw you last, brother! And you even got me out of that sick sanatorium!”

And then, of his own apparent volition, Insane Human actually got off of Hiccup.

“So I came to thank you!”

With nothing keeping him from breathing now, Hiccup took several deep gulps of air, coughing as he briefly struggled to get reacquainted with the concept, then finally he spoke.

_“Dagur what the Hell?!”_

‘Dagur’ tiled his head like he didn’t understand the question.

“Such language! Careful, if Mayor Stoick gets too upset with you he might send you away!”

Toothless growled when Hiccup tensed. ‘Dagur’ didn’t have Hiccup as a shield anymore…

“Didn’t you die?!” Hiccup asked. Oh, great, was Dagur a ghost? How was Toothless supposed to kill a ghost?

“Oh Hiccup,” Dagur sighed, actually speaking in a fondly exasperated tone. Well. Toothless _had_ named him Insane Human. “Poor, naive Hiccup. Is that what dear old Dad told you?” Dagur giggled, before continuing in a cheerful tone. “Nope! He just sent me AWAY!” Dagur suddenly screamed the last word, making Hiccup jump slightly and back away. Toothless growled in warning again. Dagur glanced at him, but otherwise didn’t seem to care. Instead, he continued on in a rant. “That’s what happens when you’re different Hiccup! You get sent away from ‘normal’ people who don’t want to deal with you.” He laughed _again_, before continuing in a calmer tone of voice. “I’m kind of surprised you don’t know that, actually. I mean, here you are, obviously different and away from everyone… where did _you_ escape from, my clever little brother?”

“I am- I am not your brother!” Hiccup snapped back, looking unnerved. Toothless couldn’t blame him. This guy cycled through emotions quick. “And I didn’t escape from anywhere! I’m not a nutcase like you!”

“You’re living with dragons. _Riding_ them, even.”

“How do, how do y- I don’t ride dragons!” Hiccup denied, and Toothless had to admit that hurt a little. Why was Hiccup denying it? There was only one human here, and tons of dragons who had no problem with it. Dagur laughed _again_.

“Oh, don’t be so modest with your madness, brother! I saw you and your magnificent bat-dragon over there,” he gestured at Toothless, who snarled. He was not a bat! If he were a more temperamental dragon, he’d have shot Dagur just for that. But Hiccup didn’t want him to kill anyone, and Toothless wasn’t a big fan of the idea either, so he just deepened his glare at the insane human instead. “I might not have escaped from that awful place if the two of you weren’t there earlier!” His emotions went flat. “Also, if you want to hide your identity, then seriously, invest in a mask or something. All it takes is a photo, Hiccup.” He smiled again. Keeping up with Dagur’s emotions was freaking tiring. “I’m guessing old Mayo Stoick-”

“Wh- don’t call him-”

“-doesn’t know?” Dagur continued without missing a beat. “Ooooh, a runaway, huh? Wish I’d had the idea!” He laughed _again_.

Hiccup bristled, obviously uncomfortable, and Toothless decided he’d had enough and shot a warning shot at Dagur’s feet. Dagur finally reacted to Toothless by jumping away from the spot and scowling at Toothless.

“Hey, do you mind?” He gestured at Hiccup. “Trying to have a family reunion over here!”

“We are not _family_ you nutcase! The last time I saw you was when I was like seven, and you tried to drown me!”

“_Did_ you ever learn to swim?” Dagur asked, sounding genuinely curious. Toothless, deciding he hadn’t done enough to get him to _leave Hiccup alone_, bound in front of his Human and roared in the intruder’s face. “Eeesh, testy!”

More growls caused Dagur to stiffen and he looked around, seemingly only just noticing that it wasn’t just the two humans in the room.

“Aw, come on! I just wanted to say thanks.”

“Yes, clearly,” Hiccup said and this was good, Toothless decided. A sarcastic Hiccup was better than an outwardly panicked Hiccup. “No better sign of gratitude than a bruised neck.”

“I could have killed you but _didn’t_. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“Uh, let me think… no. Also: what the heck is wrong with you?”

….………………………………………………………………………………………………

The burnt town that was currently the home of ‘Hiccup’s’ flock of dragons had a surprisingly intact jail, which was where Hiccup had chosen to put Dagur. Toothless had given him a _look_, but what was he supposed to do? Hiccup didn’t want to kill anyone, not even Dagur, and he couldn’t very well let the madman run off and tell someone where he was. 

Hiccup knew the dragons were anxious enough about having an uninvited human around, so he’d suggested the terrible terrors keep an eye around the town borders, in case Dagur had any friends. It solved one problem, sort of, but it didn’t fix the other ones; namely the fact that Dagur had recognized him, AND somehow followed him back into his temporary home, AND been able to get past all the dragons to nearly kill him, AND also Toothless was mad at him for some reason?

Also, Dagur had started screaming a few minutes after Hiccup had left the jail and seemingly _refused to stop_. It was honestly kind of terrifying. So that was also kind of a high-priority problem at the moment.

Dagur came second to Toothless though, no matter how dearly Hiccup wanted the nut to stop screaming all hours of the day. So he’d gone fishing in the hopes that maybe he could at least bribe Toothless to tell him what was wrong. That had taken most of the day, and he’d had to keep himself from overfeeding Sharpshot when the green Terror noticed that Hiccup had fish and given him the cute eyes. He was a weak, weak boy. But he’d had the strength of will to save plenty of fish for Toothless.

“Okay, Toothless,” Hiccup said with a grunt, pulling a sack of fish into the area he’d spotted Toothless napping in. As predicted, he was still there. “Look what I have! A whooole bunch of fish, just for you!”

Toothless gave him a flat look, seeing the bribe for what it was. Hiccup sighed.

“Come on, bud. Just tell me what I did to upset you?”

Toothless gave him a half-lidded expression, looked in the direction of the jail, then back at him.

“Dagur?” Hiccup asked. “What do you want me to do, bud? We can’t just let him-”

Toothless interrupted him with a light tail-whack to the face and walked away. Okay. So. It wasn’t Dagur being here that seemed to be bothering Toothless, but it was something related to Dagur…

Hiccup glanced at the jail.

….………………………………………

“-EEEEE OOOOOOUUUUUTTTTTT- oh, hey Hiccup!” Dagur greeted cheerfully, cutting off his screaming instantly, before breaking into a coughing fit.

“Uh. Hey. Are you… okay?”

Dagur waved his concern off.

“Throat hurts. Probably all the-” he coughed again, rubbing his throat with a pained expression, “-screaming.”

“Maybe don’t- maybe you should stop screaming, then?”

Dagur flashed him an unnerving smile, before shrugging.

“I won’t, thanks. Now,” he leaned against the wall of his cell, “did you come to let me out?”

“No. What? No! Why would I-” Hiccup shook his head. “You tried to kill me!”

“No I didn’t!” Dagur protested. “If I wanted to kill you you’d be dead! I had you right there!”

Hiccup decided he didn’t want to argue with the nutjob about this, since he’d likely be arguing in circles and it wasn’t what he came here for anyway.

“No you- nevermind. Ugh. I just needed to talk with _someone._”

“What about your dragon?” Dagur pointed out. “I imagine he must be a pretty good listener, not being able to talk and all.”

Hiccup winced.

“Not the same thing?” Dagur asked. “Weird. I used to talk to my cat all the time. He was a much better conversationalist than most of the people I knew! Then he died.”

This might have been a bad idea.

“No, he’s usually pretty good for talking to, actually.”

“Careful, Hic, some people might think you’re crazy if you talk like that about a dragon!” Dagur burst into a laughing fit, which quickly turned into yet another coughing fit.

“Some people might- Dagur, you and I are literally the only humans within like, ten miles of here! How did you even find us, anyway?!”

“My secret.”

Hiccup resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall.

“I’ll tell you if you let me out.”

“No!”

“Oh come on, brother! You know you want to…”

“I am very sure that I _don’t_, actually.”

“I’m just going to keep screaming until you let me out.”

Hiccup groaned and facepalmed.

“You know what?” he said out loud, turning to leave. “This was definitely a bad idea-”

“No, hey wait! What did you come in here for?!” Dagur called after him. “Not knowing is going to drive me crazy!”

Hiccup turned back to stare incredulously at Dagur for a second at his word choice, focusing on the bruise on his forehead from when he’d tried to _headbutt_ his way through the wall for about an hour. It was honestly something of a shock that he didn’t seem to have any brain damage from that little stunt.

“...yeah,” Hiccup finally said. “That would be… a real- a real shame.” He sighed and sat down, somewhat incredulous at the fact that he was actually talking to _Dagur_, of all people, about his problems with Toothless. “Toothless is angry with me for some reason.”

“Toothless. That would be…”

“The Night Fury.”

“Your bat dragon?”

“Why do you keep calling him that?” Hiccup asked. He knew that Toothless didn’t seem to like it. “And also, would you cut it out?”

“Night Fury. Huh. I like that better.” Dagur shrugged. “He looks like a bat. What else would I call him?”

Hiccup had to admit that he had a point. About not having anything to call Toothless, not about any resemblance to a bat he may or may not have had.

“No answer?” Dagur asked when he didn’t immediately reply. “Thought so! Anyway, you don’t have any ideas as to why your Night Fury is angry? None at all? Zip?”

“Do _you?_” Hiccup asked somewhat irritably. Dagur’s playful tone was quickly grating on his nerves, and Hiccup realized with a touch of shame that he was slightly out of practice talking to other actual human beings. Not that he’d been very good at it before he’d left Berk.

“Why would I? He’s your dragon.”

Hiccup began pacing.

“I don’t know what the problem is,” he said. “He’s been upset ever since you attacked me, but he’s upset with _me_, too, and I don’t know why. It’s not because you’re still alive, I think…”

“Really? Huh.”

“I can’t think of what else would upset him. He’s protective, but if he’s not upset about me being attacked, that probably has nothing to do with it. It’s not another human being here either, at least I’m pretty sure it’s not. Was he upset about me being by myself when it happened?”

“Dunno.” Dagur, bored, started pulling on the bars. They held just a sturdy as they had every other time he’d pulled on them.

“He wasn’t before, but if it’s because I got attacked while I was on my own…” Hiccup groaned. “Oh, man, and it took me like, a week to get Toothless to let me get ready for bed by myself! And he hates baths. If he starts trying to keep me from bathing or brushing my teeth or something before bed again, I might actually lose it…”

“Sounds like a pain, yep.” Dagur put his foot on some of the bars as he pulled for leverage, but they didn’t budge any more than they had any of the other times he’d tried.

“But we were already past that!” Hiccup argued to himself. “I don’t think Toothless would go back to being annoying about that, so it- it’s gotta be something else, right?”

“I guess.” Dagur took his second foot off the floor and pulled harder and though the door rattled obnoxiously, the rusted bars still somehow held strong. He let go and fell splayed out on the floor.

“...” Hiccup looked at him, trying not to blurt out something to the effect of ‘are you seriously trying to break out while I’m talking to you?’, because it’s not like Dagur had any reason not to and the question sounded ridiculously self-centered, like talking to him was super important or something. The thought made him feel uncomfortable for reasons he wasn’t sure of. Eventually, he settled for a dry “Having fun in there?”

“Not really. I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate HATE BEING LOCKED UP.”

He punched the wall hard and Hiccup winced at the sound of Dagur’s hand cracking. The nutjob just shook his hand, unconcerned with the pain.

“You have to let me OUT!” Dagur screamed, whipping around to glare at Hiccup, teeth barred and Hiccup took a scared, startled step backwards.

“You’ll kill me,” Hiccup said, trying and failing to keep the fear out of his voice as he looked at Dagur. “The second you’re free, you’ll kill me.”

“No I won’t!” Dagur insisted, putting on an obviously forced smile. “I’m hurt you freed me just to lock me back up, of course, but I won’t kill you for it!” Dagur coughed some more, and part of Hiccup wondered if he might be faking that for sympathy. 

The idea that Dagur, deranged, murderous Dagur who had nearly killed him several times when they were little had been trying to manipulate him into freeing him and might have even made progress on it hit Hiccup suddenly and made him feel like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head. He’d even been talking to his potential murderer like something resembling a friend! Why? Because he could actually speak English back at him?! Was he _that_ desperate for human company?!

“Come on, brother…”

“I am not your brother! Even if you don’t kill me immediately, you’ll kill me the second you want to, just because you can!”

“I won’t!” Dagur kept insisting. “Don’t you trust me?”

“NO! Why would I _ever_ trust you?!”

Dagur pouted.

“That hurts, Hiccup. It really does.”

“No, the way my lungs burned when you were trying to drown me while pretending to teach me how to swim hurt!”

“I wasn’t pretending!” Dagur insisted. “I was ten and stupid!”

“The time you stabbed me with a real knife, that _also_ hurt quite a lot.”

“Butter knives do not count as real knives.”

“They do when they break the skin and also when the person you’re stabbing is three years old!”

“I was _six_ and stupid!”

“You being a kid doesn’t excuse any of that, _or_ the time you shoved me down a flight of stairs!”

“I’m… drawing a blank on that one. Are you sure that was me?”

“Yes!”

“...no. Seriously. I don’t remember that at all.”

Hiccup’s hands slammed onto his forehead as he let out a frustrated groan.

“This was stupid!” he snapped, more at himself than at Dagur. “Why did I come talk to you?!”

He turned to leave, but Dagur once again called for him to stop. Hiccup paused, before turning to glare at the madman. Dagur looked startled at his expression before shaking his head and continuing.

“I think I might know why you’re dragon is mad at you,” Dagur told him quickly. Hiccup’s expression didn’t change, but he didn’t leave, either.  
“Really?” Hiccup asked dryly.

“Yeah, I mean, I had to think about it for a minute just now, but I’ve been playing our little meeting back over and over and over and over in my head since there isn’t a whole lot to do in here, and it juuuust hit me what it might be that’s giving you trouble!”

“And?”

“And _you_ said you don’t ride dragons.”

“...What?”

“I admit I don’t know your Night Fury all that well, but it’s the only thing I can think of that might annoy him that you did yourself. Of course, he could be angry about something that doesn’t have anything to do with my visit, but that’s the best I’ve got.”

Hiccup paused to consider that. He didn’t think Dagur would actually have any incite on the problem, he’d mostly come talk to him to vent and hope that maybe while he was talking he’d stumble over the answer on his own, but the lunatic actually had a point. Hiccup hadn’t actually meant to deny that he rode dragons, but he’d been startled by his own near-murder and he’d blurted out the denial without thinking about it. He’d honestly forgotten that he’d even said that until Dagur brought it up.

Toothless could be… overly proud sometimes, so the denial probably hurt his ego.

“That… might just be it,” Hiccup said quietly. He blinked, startled. Had Dagur just... _helped_ him? “Uh. Thanks?”

This was way too weird. Hiccup had no idea what to think.

Dagur just grinned at him. There was an unnerving air of smugness about it. Hiccup quickly retreated.

….……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Hey, Toothless!” Hiccup called when he saw the Night Fury, currently napping on the roof. Toothless’s ears perked up and he picked up his head to glance lazily down at Hiccup. The dragon yawned, stretched, then bounded down to greet his rider. “Hey bud.” Toothless bumped him lightly as Hiccup scratched his neck, before the dragon remembered he was irritated with Hiccup and turned away.

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait, wait, Toothless!” Hiccup pleaded, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry, about what I- about earlier.”

Toothless tilted his head curiously clearly wondering what, exactly Hiccup thought he was apologizing for.

“It took me longer than it should have to realize what was upsetting you, and it took talking to Dagur, too- don’t look at me like that- but it’s because I said I wasn’t a Dragon Rider, right?”

Toothless snorted, obviously thinking it was obvious.

“I’m sorry bud I didn’t mean- I didn’t even think about it. It was just- I just reacted. I’m sorry that I…”

Toothless bumped Hiccup in the chest before licking the human’s face. Hiccup was quick to let out a groan of disgust as he tried to wipe it off.

“Toothless, come on! Ugh!”

Although he was outwardly grimacing, internally Hiccup was smiling, knowing that his best friend had forgiven him for his slip-up.

Both of the two of them flinched as Dagur started screaming nonsense again. The two shared a look, knowing that _something_ had to be done about their… guest.

….…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The two had brainstormed, which mostly consisted of Hiccup coming up with ideas and Toothless pointing out they were dumb ones. Toothless did come up with a few, which were also shot down, before an idea was finally agreed upon. It wasn’t a particularly great idea, but Hiccup was confident that it would, at least, stop Dagur’s screaming.

Toothless grumbled as he, Hiccup, and the Speedstinger Icebreaker approached the jail. Hiccup rolled his eyes at the grumbling and shooshed him not-entirely seriously. When the three of them entered the jail, they found Dagur lying face-down on the floor of his cell screaming. Hiccup and Toothless traded looks, before Hiccup cleared his throat. Unsurprisingly, it went unheard, and he tried again louder. Once again, it went ignored and Hiccup’s entire body sagged in annoyance. He glanced at the two dragons, then mimed putting his hands over his ears. Getting the message that things were about to be loud (louder than they already were, anyway) Toothless snapped his flaps to the side of his head and put a wing around Icebreaker.

“For the love of- DAGUR STOP YELLING!”

Dagur stopped screaming like a switch had been flipped. He did not, however, get off of the floor. He did, at least pick his face up off the floor, which was something, Hiccup supposed.

“What?”

Hiccup took a steadying breath as Toothless nudged him slightly, reminding his friend that he wasn’t alone. Hiccup smiled and rubbed Toothless’s head before looking back at Dagur with as much authority as a thirteen-year-old runaway who hadn’t had any human contact for months could muster. He tried not to let the way Dagur burst into laughter at his attempt deflate him.

“I can let you out-”

Dagur was on his feet immediately and slammed his hands on the bars. The unnervingly wide grin he was wearing seemed to nearly split his face in half. Hiccup didn’t jump backwards only by virtue of having suspected Dagur would react that way, and he still didn’t manage to completely suppress a flinch.

“Great!” Daugr enthused, shaking the bars some, seemingly expecting Hiccup to open the door any second. Hiccup rubbed Toothless’s head again in the hopes that it would keep him calm. Maybe if he thought of Dagur as less like a crazy human and more like a wild dragon, he’d be able to do this more easily.

“I need you to do something for me first,” Hiccup said, holding both his hands up. Dagur gave him a weird look, possibly wondering what Hiccup expected him to do from inside his cell. “You just have- just put your hands behind your back, okay? Then I’ll open the door.” Dagur continued to stare at him, a single eyebrow raised, before rolling his eyes and doing as he was asked. Hiccup, surprised by how well this was going and worried that the good luck wasn’t going to last, cautiously opened the door.

“_Fina_-” Dagur didn’t have time to say much before Icebreaker, at a gesture from Toothless, zipped into the cell and stung Dagur. Hiccup was decidedly not looking forward to Dagur’s reaction once the Speedstinger venom wore off, but for now it gave him time to work on his idea for the intruder.

With Dagur frozen the way he was, getting the measurements he needed was easy. Making the thing on time, however, was not. Had Hiccup not been preparing prior to talking to Dagur, he might not have made it on time. As it was, however, he managed to just make it back and clip on the handcuff-esc creation, a lightweight, metal cage for Dagur’s hands, with enough room for Dagur to move his hands somewhat freely but keep him from being able to use them to hurt anyone. Hiccup barely managed to take a few quick steps back out of the cell before the venom finally wore off and Dagur, who’d been standing in one place for hours now, collapsed.

“That was a _nasty_ trick, brother,” Dagur snarled, not lifting his head up from the ground. “I’m going to get you back for that.”

Hiccup fidgeted slightly, unnerved by the dark tone of Dagur’s voice even with how muffled by the floor it was. He was unsurprised, but it was still unnerving to hear.  
“Uh, well, look! Door’s open, I’m not- you’re not stuck in here anymore!”

After a few agonizing seconds, during which a very tense Hiccup was fully prepared to mount Toothless and take off out of range of… whatever Dagur could potentially do, Dagur finally struggled to his feet. It hadn’t occurred to Hiccup how difficult that would be from a face-down on the floor position without the use of hands, but it was the best solution he could think of. Hopefully, Dagur wouldn’t be taking his frustrations about it out on Hiccup or any of the dragons that were around. Both of those were unpleasant scenarios to imagine, albeit for completely different reasons.

Dagur gave Hiccup a suspicious glare, slowly and almost innoticeably inching his way to the door, as though he expected it to slam shut on him if it were obvious that he was approaching. Once he apparently got close enough, Dagur shot out the door and even out of the jailhouse entirely. He stopped a few feet past the doorway, and just, stood stock-still for long enough that Hiccup found himself starting to actually feel concerned for him when Dagur burst into hysterical laughter. The three still in the jailhouse winced, more startled than anything. Toothless gave Hiccup a look as Icebreaker cocked his head at him.

“I know, but what else can we do? We can’t just- just _kill_ him. And he’s not screaming anymore, at least.”

Toothless snorted, probably wondering why murder was off the table in this case. But they just… just couldn’t kill Dagur! Sure, he was a psycho, but he was still, arguably, human. It wasn’t like with the Whispering Death boss. He’d had a history of some kind with Toothless, it was a dragon matter, so it was up to Toothless to decide how to end it, and dragon grudges were to the death. And! That had been a matter of survival. There had been no other options. Now that they had other options they couldn’t just go around killing people! Right?

Besides, the only one Dagur had actually tried to kill, despite his protests that he hadn’t actually been planning to murder him, was Hiccup. That meant he was the one who decided whether to kill him or not. And until Dagur decided to actually try to kill him, or the dragons, that decision would stay a firm no.

Hiccup sighed and motioned for Icebreaker to keep an eye on Dagur. He wouldn’t be the only one, but still. Dagur would need a guard 24/7, just in case he decided to run off and tell someone about this place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bluh. This is badly written. Frick. (the problem is mostly that I wrote everything up to the end of Hiccup's conversation with Dagur in the jailhouse, then couldn't think of how to continue the chapter.)
> 
> If you think Toothless forgave Hiccup very quickly... you are correct. But he wasn't all that mad, he just wanted Hiccup to realize what he'd done, and nothing else. (i came *this* close to scrapping the irritated Toothless plotline, but i needed Dagur to do _something_ vaguely nice for Hiccup.)
> 
> ...yeah, this story has only me and no one else looking over it, so the quality can go all over the place. (it's a recurring problem with all my fics. sorry.)


End file.
